Singing, chanting and waving placards and American flags, more than 60 young Latinos marched on Fort Bragg City Hall Monday to demand dignity for illegal immigrants.
Dozens of motorists tooted support as the march got bigger and bigger at stops in front of Town Hall and down Main Street, with more than 200 Latino and other adults joining the marchers along the way.
The march was part of a nationwide immigrant-led demonstration after Congress proposed a crackdown on illegal immigrants and building a wall across the Mexican border.
Fort Bragg High Senior Adrian Leyva led Monday”s march after a similar protest led mostly by ninth and 10th grade girls last week got a somewhat cool reception at school.
“Last week it was very unorganized. I think they saw the media and got all pumped up but [people] didn”t know the issues. It made me angry when I heard other people laughing at them, making fun. I decided I would organize this, and this is what resulted,” he said, pointing to the large crowd.
“I really did not expect so many people, it is all for the best,” he said.
Leyva gave speeches first in Spanish, then in English for the crowd, explaining the legislation now on the table and emphasizing that the demonstration must be orderly.
There was a Mexican flag unfurled at the start of the demonstration but it was not visible during the march, with many American flags waved and students” enthusiastically chanting “USA! USA!”
Leyva was out front during the entire event, gesturing and insisting on organized and civil behavior. At one point, he became upset when some marchers were blocking traffic momentarily and turned them back to the sidewalk.
“We might not make a difference, but we are showing we believe we can,” Leyva said.
The group marched from La Bamba grocery store and restaurant on Franklin Street to City Hall to Town Hall and then south along Highway 1.
Leyva said he talked to people in New York, Florida and New Jersey about the protest before leading the event, which started at 9 a.m. on a school day.
Fort Bragg High School Principal Allen Urbani said students absent for the protest would be marked for an unexcused absence.
“It will be treated like any other absence, on any day,” he said. There was no effort to declare the students truant. About 29 percent of Fort Bragg Unified School District is Latino, according to census figures. Urbani said the percentage is greater in the lower grades. He said 60 to 70 students were absent from the high school due to the demonstration.
The proposal that seemed to concern the group the most was a Republican plan that passed the U.S. House to make felons of some illegal immigrants. That plan had actually stalled in the Senate prior to the national demonstrations, as the GOP split over the extent of the immigration reform.
One boy held a sign that read, “Don”t criminalize my dad.” Many of the signs and comments by the group focused on their opposition to making being in the country illegally a felony.
Miranda Ramos is the wife of an immigrant who came to America as an illegal alien.
“I really have a hard time with any immigration reform that does not have any measures for the big business and making the people who are profiting off the illegal status of immigrants pay in some way,” Ramos said.
“If a person coming here to try to feed their family is to be a felon, the person profiting off them should be a felon as well,” said Ramos.
Counter protest Saturday
While the demonstrators were greeted mostly with honks of support on Monday, there are plans for a counter-protest led by Fort Bragg native senior citizens.
Resident Vernon Atkinson brought a press release to the Advocate-News following the demonstration, announcing plans for an April 15 demonstration titled “Americans for America — No amnesty — secure our borders.”
Atkinson invites all American citizens from all ethnicities to join the protest. He said the action had been planned for some time by concerned local seniors and is not in response to the student action Monday and is not against legal immigrants. Atkinson is a Fort Bragg native, as are others concerned enough to stage a protest, he said.
“I am not too happy with what is going on. The illegal immigrants don”t have any rights. This is our country not theirs,” he said.
Atkinson blamed both political parties with not solving the problem of insecure borders and said he is not in favor of “kicking everybody out,” but is against amnesty.
Atkinson”s Americans for America event will be Saturday, April 15 at 1 p.m., on the corner of Main and Laurel streets in Fort Bragg but will be canceled in case of rain.
Pro-business legislators are concerned about the big impact of removing a group of workers there are no replacements for. Those involved with Monday”s protest emphasized the important role illegal immigrants play in society and said government should solve the problem rather than simply criminalizing the workers.
Colonial Inn Owner Marta Weber”s grandparents were immigrants from Sweden and Italy who met on a ship to America from Europe.
“I don”t know if they had all their papers, the point is they were productive people who made a contribution,” Weber said.
She said society must come up with a better plan to integrate illegal immigrants than criminalizing them.
“People who come at the level of struggle many of these immigrants are in, they are not going to walk through a bureaucracy. It is our burden to find out a way to make this work,” said Weber.
Rachel Binah marched to oppose the idea of criminalizing a class of working people who make a major contribution to the community.
“This democratic event was organized by the children of our community. That is wonderful,” said Binah, a longtime coast resident.
“These are good people, working people who need to be recognized as important parts of our community, for the tremendous contribution they make,” she said.
Eracism”
There were language barriers during the protest. One Latino demonstrator asked this reporter to translate “Eracism,” which was hand-inscribed on a poster held by Chad Swimmer.
“Is that really a word?” he asked, confessing his English is not perfect.
Eracism is the slogan of the group ERACE, which was formed in New Orleans in the summer of 1993 following a series of articles in The Times-Picayune about eliminating racism, which led to a bumper sticker campaign that spread nationwide.
Swimmer said the trendy slogan was the best he could come up with when given a marker and only a few seconds.
Leo Manez, a Fort Bragg resident since 1989, said he was marching to make the point that all Americans are immigrants and that immigrants want to be part of the democratic system.
“In my book, everybody has a right to express themselves. If people believe in putting up a wall, that is their point of view and they are entitled to it. Doing this is how we express our point of view peacefully,” he said.
The mostly female high school students out in front of the march were clearly having fun, chanting with the verve of a high school pep rally. “Everywhere we go, everywhere we go, people want to know, people want to know, who we are, who we are, so we tell them,” they chanted, culminating in “mighty, mighty Latinas.” Many of the students are involved in sports at the high school.
The enthusiastic singing fell mostly on an empty town in the mid-morning. At Fort Bragg City Hall the demonstrators overflowed the steps while singing. Only Fort Bragg Mayor Dave Turner came out to react.
“I am with you,” he said tersely, when asked to speak by Leyva.
John Darcy was working at his painting business when the crowd passed by.
“This is great,” he said.
“We have two Hispanics working for us, and I think people should stand up and express themselves any chance they get,” Darcy added.
National organizers say the nationwide strategy that has evolved from the protests will let them keep pressuring lawmakers, though legislation offering eventual citizenship to illegal immigrants staggered last Friday when Senate Republicans and Democrats couldn”t agree to a final vote, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
